Place Names in Amiskwaciwâskahikan / ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Edmonton)

Bravo to Amiskwaciwâskahikan / ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Edmonton) Mayor Don Iveson for supporting decolonization through the use of place names in real nêhiyawêwin, for his own work in support of Cree literacy, and for his eloquence in defending those choices. I won’t name the city councillor who is arguing for literal translations or phonetic renderings – which entrench the colonial model that helped erase the Cree presence in the first place. Would they even for a minute consider doing this to place names in French?

Mayor Don Iveson said such questions are best left to the city’s naming committee. But he said using Indigenous names is “a significant act” of reconciliation.

“I think it’s really important to remember that the language that’s actually precedent here — that’s been spoken here for thousands of years — those languages are Indigenous languages and in particular, Cree,” Iveson said.

“In the gesture of working to acknowledge that the language of this place historically was a different language, that’s how we recognize and decolonize what is otherwise a narrative of conquest — and language is part of conquest.”

Driving out Indigenous language was one of the reasons for the residential school system, Iveson said — “to excise cultural practices and languages from Indigenous peoples.”

(Ironically, I am a little surprised at the way they’ve chosen to render “trail” in syllabics with one character per English letter. I suspect a speaker might have given mêskanâs / ᒣᐢᑲᓈᐢ for trail. I might have left the English word “trail” in English, or written it ᐟᕒᐁᓬ. But transliteration of English words in Cree syllabics is another issue altogether.

Yes, it does look like operator error by somebody who doesn’t read syllabics. This variety of Cree does have L and R symbols, but they weren’t used. Writing a two-vowel diphthong in syllabics is just silly (in my opinion).